Says dementia research lags 25 years behind the progress made in cancer

Advances in drug development will be too late for 850,000 sufferers

Dementia research is lagging 25 years behind the progress made in cancer, a leading health chief warned today. People fear Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia more than cancer – yet dementia research receives only a tenth of the funding. Dame Gill Morgan, chair of NHS Providers, said yesterday: ‘Dementia is, in my view, the cruellest disease.

‘It is a cruel disease because your family watch you declining, and they lose the person, but they keep the body. ‘Studies show that dementia is now the most feared disease, it is more feared than cancer. ‘It is the thing that people do not want to get when they are older. ‘One of the thing that makes it very difficult, is that we really are not fully clear what the biological causes are. ‘If you compare it to cancer, and the knowledge that we have about the biology and genetics of the disease, cancer is probably 20 to 25 years ahead.’

Dame Gill, whose organisation represents most English NHS trusts, said that advances currently being made in dementia drug development will come too late to help the 850,000 people currently living with the disease in Britain.